The Feast

The Feast is back! And our debut episode for Season Two is out of this world. Literally! We're going back to one of the most (in)famous meals in the history of NASA, when a contraband corned beef sandwich snuck aboard Gemini 3 in 1965. We'll explore how space food has changed over the years. No more Tang and freeze-dried ice cream for modern astronauts, the space food of tomorrow may include everything from homemade sourdough bread to wine. We'll talk to Sebastian D. Marcu, CEO and founder of Bake in Space, a company with a noble goal: to bring the art of homemade bread to space. Explore how different countries are making sure their classic cuisines are represented in zero gravity, whether it's Italian espresso, German rolls, or Korean kimchi. Learn the difficulties of sending fermented foods into space & how the future missions to Mars may make farmers out of some astronauts! Written and Produced by Laura Carlson Technical Direction by Mike Portt

We're cooking up a delicious new season, debuting Friday, August 4th 2017! Discover the hidden stories behind competitive Soba eating in Japan, how the electric oven revolutionized the modern kitchen, and the unsung stories of African American chefs in the White House. All this and more on our delectable season two, starting with a stellar first episode on the history of space food! Don't miss out, subscribe today to The Feast and get ready for more meals that made history! 

On this very special season finale, we've teamed up with Liz Birnbaum and The Curated Feast to bring you a mythic meal that'll take you from the roots to the stars. Join Liz and her guests at a secret underground location near Santa Cruz, California as they dine on food fit for the gods. We'll explore how food played an integral role in ancient folklore, representing cycles of birth, death, and renewal. Why did the ancient Egyptians associate barley with Osiris? Why did pomegranates confine Persephone to the Greek underworld? All these answers and more on this very special underground edition of The Feast.   Event Concept & Organization by Liz Birnbaum (The Curated Feast) Recipes by Hedy Nochimson (Plate & Bottle Supper Club & Catering) Music by Carl Atilano (www.carlatilano.com) Photography by Kyle Murphy of KNM Portraits (www.knmportraits.com) Written & Produced by Laura Carlson Technical Direction by Mike Portt

The Ramos Gin Fizz. The Sazerac. The Mint Julep. Cocktails can have some great origin stories, but how can you tell  sober fact from tipsy fiction? This week, we're going cold turkey to get the details behind that noble institution of pre-dinner drinking: the cocktail party. Legend (or Wikipedia) says the first cocktail party was held by Mrs. Julius S. Walsh Jr. in 1917 St. Louis. As we'll learn, the real story is *way* more complicated, stretching from Revolutionary America to the swinging 1970s. While Mrs. Walsh may not have invented the cocktail party, her life was full up with martinis, mayhem, and, yes, even murder.   Written & Produced by Laura Carlson Technical Direction by Mike Portt

What's the most iconic fair food? Popcorn? Hot dogs? Deep-fried apple pie on a stick? Today, fair food and the fryer may be a match made in heaven, but where did the trend of eating adventurously at the fair start? Today, we're heading back to the original American fair: the Centennial Exposition of 1876. But don't get out the deep-fried twinkies just yet. Turns out, the biggest battle in 19th century American fair food was about fine dining! Despite the white tablecloth service visitors received in 1876, we'll learn how the Centennial Exposition saw the birth of some of America's most famous casual foods: the hamburger and soda.  Written & Produced by Laura Carlson Technical Direction by Mike Portt

Forget Hansel & Gretel's candy cottage, Naples was building fortresses of food in the 18th century! This week, we're investigating the Neapolitan tradition of cuccagna- a festival celebrating a mythical land of food, where roast chicken rained from the skies and wine flowed in rivers. Learn how early modern Neapolitans built giant edible monuments to celebrate birthdays, weddings, and holidays, complete with fortresses of ham, bell towers made of cheese, and lakes of beer! Was it all in good gluttonous fun or did the festival have a deeper political purpose? We'll also speak with Dr. Alan Darr at the Detroit Institute of Arts, where you can see relics of these early modern feasts at the Edible Monuments Exhibition, on until April 16th. 

Pass the mastodon, would you? This week we're talking about the famous Explorers Club Dinner of 1951, where woolly mammoth (or was it ancient giant sloth?) was a featured appetizer. We'll find out how a Connecticut museum ended up with the leftovers of this crazy meal & how it took over 60 years to finally figure out what was really for dinner that night. Join us for a great discussion with Jessica Glass & Dr. Matt Davis, the two scientists who discovered the identity of the most famous mystery meat in history. We'll talk about the curious tendency for scientists to nibble on their specimens, including Darwin's regrettable dinner of owl, and how food might have a major role in the future of conservation.

This week, we're headed to the land of bean trees & cholla buds: the Sonoran Desert. Home to UNESCO's new capital of gastronomy, Tucson, we'll trace the desert's diverse culinary history, from the cornfields of the Hohokam to the mission gardens of the German Jesuits. Why did 18th century missionaries bring fruit trees to Sonora? Could heritage wheat be the solution to sustainable farming in southern Arizona? We'll look at several projects revitalizing the ancient foodways of the desert, including exclusive interviews with Jesús Garcia, co-founder of the Kino Heritage Fruit Trees Project, and Sonya Norman, public programs coordinator at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.  Written & Produced by Laura Carlson Technical Direction by Mike Portt

This week, take the escalator to menswear and turn left at home goods. We're heading to the glory days of department store dining with a trip back to old Toronto. Learn how Eaton's and Simpson's battled for the hearts and dollars of Torontonians through their opulent in-store restaurants. We'll explore why these stores are remembered more for their chicken pot pies than for their sales! We'll enjoy a nostalgic dinner at the historic Arcadian Court, a survivor of the golden age of department stores, & we'll put two stores' pot pie recipes to the test, settling a 100-year-old company rivalry once and for all!

This week, The Feast is bringing you a very special Canadian episode dedicated to Chinese New Year! We're exploring an opulent Han Dynasty banquet from the second century CE as the basis for our own Chinese New Year celebrations in Toronto. Join us as we search for the origins of tofu, find out the proper way to make a baijiu cocktail, & recite some foodie poetry from ancient China. All this & more rooster puns than you can shake a tail feather at on this week's episode of The Feast. Written & Produced by Laura Carlson. Technical direction by Mike Portt. Find out more at www.thefeastpodcast.org

Feeling punchy this inauguration season? Take a note from Andrew Jackson & join the wildest party the White House has ever seen! In our first episode of 2017, we’re heading to 1829 when 10,000 people crashed Jackson’s Inauguration Reception for a bit of cake and barrels of free punch. But was this party as wild as rumors have suggested? Did Jackson plan the whole thing? And where did all those punch barrels come from? We’ll learn the history of the popular tipple & why it’s been the drink of American politicians for over two hundred years. We’ll even throw in some great punch recipes straight from the history books for you to make at home. All this and more on a very punchy inauguration special of The Feast. Written & Produced by Laura Carlson Technical Direction by Mike Portt More information and recipes available at www.thefeastpodcast.org. And please take a moment to rate & review us on iTunes!

Sitting down to the traditional holiday ham this season? This week on The Feast, we're celebrating the unofficial animal of the winter season: the pig! Find out why a boar's head is the center of holiday traditions from London to Louisville. We'll learn a porcine Christmas carol, some tips on how to buy off the mayor of medieval London, & why an Oxford college still celebrates an epic 14th century battle of student vs. pig. Discover the distant & unexpected roots of the spiral-cut holiday ham this week on a very special porky holiday episode. Written and Produced by Laura Carlson Technical Direction by Mike Portt Episode Music featuring Jahzzar: "Gramaphone" & "Where It Goes" A huge thanks to the community at St. Paul's Methodist Church for their help with this episode. For more information, please visit www.thefeastpodcast.org

Moose milk. Powdered eggs. Coffee a la Yukon. This week, The Feast is heading to the Canadian wilderness- where 10,000 US soldiers helped to build the Alaskan Highway in 1942. But how do you feed an army in the middle of nowhere? We'll look at how these soldiers survived arctic winters & mosquito-plagued summers with the latest in military food technology, including dehydrated foods and the rise of the dreaded C-Ration, the meal for the soldier on the go. With nothing but powdered milk and tinned food to eat for up to six months at a time, soldiers got creative with the local wildlife. Bear steak, anyone? Written & Produced by Laura Carlson Technical Direction by Mike Portt

Struggling to decide what to have for lunch today? Take a tip from history & pack a pie! This week, The Feast explores how the pastry pie was the original grab & go lunch option, from the Ottoman börek to the Cornish pasty to the Hot Pocket. Although the Cornish pasty may be an icon of English cuisine, learn how a small town in the mountains of Mexico made this traditional mining meal their own. Plus, all the EU pastry laws you can handle on this week’s special collaboration episode featuring Rocio Carvajal & PassTheChipotle.com Co-written by Rocio Carvajal & Laura Carlson Produced by Laura Carlson Technical direction by Mike Portt Featuring music by Fabian Measures, Blue Dot Sessions, Jahzzar, Chris Zabriskie, and Kevin MacLeod For recipes, photos, episode soundtrack, and more visit us at www.thefeastpodcast.org

It’s that time of gruyère: it’s the Feast’s election episode! And we’re dedicating a whole show to some great White House food traditions. What do you get the President that has everything? A giant cheese, of course! Not just for fans of “The West Wing” anymore, we’re looking into the weird and wacky world of White House cheeses, going back to one of the founding fathers himself, Thomas Jefferson. Find out how a 1200-pound cheese ended up on the president’s doorstep one cold January morning in 1802. Learn what Jefferson did with all that cheese, and how a White House room earned its name from a dairy product. All this and all the cheese puns you can handle on this week’s episode of The Feast.  ​Written & Produced by Laura Carlson. Technical Direction by Mike Portt. For great cheesey show notes, please visit www.thefeastpodcast.org. Support the podcast and keep the cheese rolling by visiting www.patreon.com/feastpodcast Music featured on this week’s episode includes work by: Fabian Measures, Julie Maxwell’s Piano Music, Steve Combs, Unheard Music Concepts, Peter Rudenko, Jahzzar, and Chris Zabriskie. Please visit our website for more information on these great artists.